


Terrified

by Guardian Of The Lotus (DistantStorm)



Series: Fictober 2019 [31]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 03:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/Guardian%20Of%20The%20Lotus
Summary: Zavala is injured in Towerfall. Amanda and Sloane are forced to intervene.Written for day 31 of the Fictober 2019 Challenge on Tumblr: "Scared, me?"





	Terrified

_Plip, plip._

Sloane looks to Amanda. The Shipwright is dirty and bruised, exhausted from the last forty-eight hours of non-stop flying. Even so, she doesn’t stray far from the helm, preferring to have eyes and ears on things. She doesn’t pay sloane any mind. They haven’t been on Titan for long. Patrol groups have been sent out, a message has been sent to - even if it’s depressing, people will know they’re here. Sloane refuses to give up hope.

_Plip, plip._

“Do you hear that?” Sloane asks.

Zavala grumbles something, but it isn’t a word.

“I don’t,” Amanda says, eyes still on the radar display. From where she’s standing, resting against the hatch, it’s likely impossible to hear any of the ambient noise Sloane does.

From the corner of her eye she sees his hand sag, limp, to the armrest. It draws her eyes down, down to the slow trickle of blood from someplace hidden by the arm of the chair he’s sitting in, to the deckplate below.

_Plip, plip._

Cautiously, she calls, “Commander?”

Zavala doesn’t respond. That gets Amanda's attention, fast. Both women share a frantic glance.

“Sloane-” Panic lances through the younger woman’s voice for just a moment, pushing her to act. She shakes her head and drops to her knees, yanking out an orange box from the center console, working on autopilot. Holliday served once. She understands, even if she doesn’t want to, smashing a button on a nearby panel to close the two doors that grant entry to their impromptu war-room.

The Deputy Commander crouches in front of him on one knee. “Commander,” She tries first. Nothing. “Zavala!” She barks. Muted blue eyes open half-way and fall. She smacks his cheeks, trying to keep him conscious. “Where’s your Ghost?” Sloane urges him, voice sharp. “Where is she?”

His hand gestures to his chest and flops aimlessly as he mutters something unintelligible, and Sloane bites back a colorful curse around the same time Amanda whimpers, finally spotting the dark pool of blood on the ground. Dark brown eyes look over her shoulder to Amanda, then down to the metal table they have reports scattered on.

Holliday bars an arm over it in a flash and sends everything flying.

“I’m sorry for this,” Sloane tells him apologetically, hearing him begin to voice some confused question as she hefts him up by the belt, draping him against her and then flipping him onto the table. It's more urgent than gentle. Amanda manages to catch his head and pushes the top half of her flight suit under it like a pillow. “Help me get his breastplate off,” Sloane instructs, but Amanda’s already pulling off buckles and shucking off the wide plates that shield his shoulder so that he doesn't clip her with it in his disoriented state. 

Quick work reveals a messy wound in his side, oozing and bloody. "You were shot. You idiot," His Deputy adds, half affectionate, half furious. "Why the hell did you keep this to yourself?"

Zavala’s eyes open, impossibly blue and far too hazy, finding Sloane. "Amanda." Even slurring, he’s articulate. “Don't let her see me like-”

Amanda steps back, silent, head shaking in a negative. Her eyes are full of tears and Sloane can almost hear the sob that she’s holding back in her mind but she composes herself. “Don’t worry. I sent her to check in with the teams.”

“You were the right choice,” He tells her and Amanda doesn’t stop the whimper before it escapes. Sloane doesn’t notice it for how loud her heartbeat is in her ears, and Zavala is too far gone to pay it any mind. He’d been holding on well past his limits, but without the Light, he’d pay the price. “I stand by that.”

“Don’t you make confessions to me now, Commander. Tell your Ghost to heal you.” She bites back a muffled, “Fuck.”

Neither of the Titans notice Amanda rummaging around on the ground with the med kit. The Shipwright rips open a package, pulls out a cylindrical object that has little prongs on the end of it and taps him in the side of the neck with it. The initial prick of pain makes his head loll towards her and she puts a hand on his forehead.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Amanda tells him and she knows when he realizes exactly what’s going on, the way panic bubbles up in his eyes in a moment of clarity, even as the medication she’s pushed into him drags his eyelids down. He's not afraid for himself. He never, ever wanted to let her see him as anything other than immovable. He's always been her rock. He knows how much she's lost, and that she can't take much more. “I know," She does her best to smile. "Just rest,” She tells him, voice even with conviction. “We gotcha.”

It doesn’t make him struggle less, trying to rally against a thick tongue and heavy lips to say something. It doesn’t work. She’s hit him with a narcotic and an antibiotic conveniently packaged into one rapid-fire package. As someone who’s been hit with one herself, Holliday knows it’s like being smacked into next week. He’ll be furious with her later, and that’s just fine by her, so long as he lives long enough to do so.

Sloane looks lost. Amanda swipes at her cheeks with the back of her hands, angry. “Breastplate,” She reminds Sloane, jostling her from her thoughts. “We ain’t losin’ him, Deputy Commander. Get it together.””

“Yes ma’am,” Sloane answers, more on auto-pilot than the pilot staring her down. Amanda waits for her to make eye contact. “If they,” She seethes. “I will rip those motherfucking bastards apart with my bare hands and-”

“I know,” Amanda agrees.

Together they manage to finish undoing the Commander’s breastplate, lifting the half that covers his chest to uncover scorch marks around the edges where there are gaps between armor plates and one very battered ghost. The fins of her shell are all-but embedded in his chest, puncturing his sweater from the pressure of being closed into his breastplate. Sloane hesitates. No idle twitching, the Ghost is entirely still. It’s an unspoken rule, Guardians don’t handle others’ Ghosts- 

-But Amanda is no Guardian, and she’s never agreed to play by their rules. Deft fingers very carefully pry the Ghost from Zavala’s chest, the twist of her lips the only indication that there’s any resistance. She’s got flecked, dry blood on her fingertips when she finally gets Zavala’s partner free. 

“The bullet wound’s on my side,” Sloane informs her.

Amanda rounds the table, looking at the ugly damage from the slug, the way it bleeds, angry and oozing. “C’mon girl,” She whispers to the tiny droid, holding her close to her face, inspecting her core for damage and thankfully finding none. “He needs ya.” There’s a titch of movement, hardly anything, but the wilted cones of the Ghost in her palms shudder.

“Atta girl,” She says, when the optic lights, dim, and a singular beam of Light passes over the wound, probing. “Don’t push it. I'll wrap him up, you just stop that bleedin’.” Sloane swallows hard.

“Deputy Commander, bring me that kit, yeah?”

Sloane nods, and hops to it as Amanda holds the Ghost close to the Titan’s wounded side, balancing her in one hand to rip off flayed leather armor to better allow them to see it. “That should be enough,” The Ghost says, after a minute of flickering, wavering beams. Her voice is addled by weakness and exhaustion. “I couldn’t get it all, but...”

“Y’did great,” Amanda coos, when it’s clear the Ghost can’t continue. “Thank you.”

“Would you-”

“A’course.” She very carefully lowers the Ghost back to her Guardian’s chest, lifting Zavala’s hand to press it over her gently. “We got the rest. You two take 'er easy.” Without looking to Sloane, she begs, “Gimme the antiseptic, will ya?”

She hands it over and stands back, crossing her arms as Amanda dumps most of the bottle over the area of the wound. Between the Ghost’s interference and the antibiotic she’d forced on him, it should be enough. Silently, Amanda works on cleaning the blood off him, the Deputy Commander switching out pads of gauze as she dirties them in the process. They work in silence.

“It’s gonna be alright, Sloane,” Amanda says after it’s done, despite the slight tremor in her fingers, or the way her eyes threaten to leak against her will.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Scared, me?” Amanda sniffles. Laughs a little, but doesn’t shy away from the Titan’s concerned gaze. “I’m terrified.”

Sloane looks at Amanda, really looks, then, and the dark, serious look in her green eyes is out of place until she realizes for the first time, she’s not seeing a child - the wild hellion half raised by her Commander who ascended the ranks and became Tower Shipwright.

Before Sloane or Zavala or the Last City knew her, Amanda Holliday was a refugee. A survivor.

“But that ain’t gonna stop me, and we can’t let it stop him, either. You know how he is.”

“I do.”

“We’re gonna make it through this,” Amanda tells them then, all of them, pressing a kiss to Zavala’s hand over his Ghost, grabbing on Sloane’s arm with a startlingly firm squeeze. “We got to.”

“What do I tell the troops?” She gestures to the doors. “He’ll be out of it for a while because of that-” Her eyes fall on the discarded syringe. “Our teams will be-”

“Tell them that I… had a meltdown. He’s consolin’ me. You’re relayin’ anything of note.”

“But-”

“I could go for a good cry,” Amanda says, with a curl of her lip. “They can’t ever find out about this. It’d be devastatin’.”

Sloane pats the top of Amanda’s head, taking to the door that leads to the bridge. “Agreed. You let me know if you need anything. Either of you.”

Amanda nods, dropping into the chair beside the table, pulling her good leg to her chest, resting her chin on it. She could go for a good cry, sure, but not yet. Not until she’s seen her words proven true.


End file.
